It has become a tradition over the past years that we use World Poetry Day on March 21 to focus on a specific aspect or topic of the poetry world. The situation of refugees has a sad currentness all over the world today and it affects also poets, in their personal life and in their writing.

photo: Department for International Development/K. Joseph

We asked a handful of “lyrikline-poets” who have a personal relation to this topic to answer a written interview to share their ideas and experiences. Each of the poets got a questionnaire and was
free to chose from a range of questions. The answers that reached us are remarkable, important, and moving and we would like to thank all the poets very much for openly speaking about their opinions and events in their life.

Mansur Rajih was born in Yemen in 1958 where he was imprisoned for 15 years. He came to Stavanger City of Refuge in Norway in 1998.

Lyrikline Blog (LB): Where do you come from and why did you leave your country of origin?

Mansur Rajih (MR): I came to Norway from Yemen after a lengthy international campaign. I was a prisoner of conscience. They arrested me for exercising my freedom of expression about life in a dictatorship And my activity in the field of struggle for democracy and human rights. I was in prison for 15 years.

LB: In your view, is it the task of a poet also to be a chronicler or witness of his/her time?

MR: To create a poem is an act of beauty. An author must be – not a witness, but involved and active. I believe in seeing, acting and being alive through writing poetry. Life is full of forces that we must counteract.

LB: What impact on society or politics can a poem have? Do oppressive regimes have to fear poetry?

Lyrikline Blog (LB):In your view, is it the task of a poet also to be a chronicler or witness of his/her time?

Diana Vallejo (DV): The poetry itself is a result of what you think, your reflections, your deep beliefs and fears, what you feel, those desires or hopes that we have. In certain social conditions this deep view of our humanity will have a certain line and shape, a map of what we are living or knowing about our surroundings, even the geography will be an influence in that poem. For me the written poem is the last result of our vulnerability like a human being. In my case it is not a task, but it is inevitable that I show or tell that special place or chronicle that lives through me again, so the action of publishing a poem in the paper converts me to some kind of witness of any field. For example I can say that I witness a person, or a bird or a country, the space, or the life, so yes it can be a task, but is not an obligation, you decide that. To write or not to write is very similar to … to be or not to be.

LB:What impact on society or politics can a poem have? Do oppressive regimes have to fear poetry?

DV: Fear? I don’t think so, because they don’t care about human life and they really don’t understand the content of humanity. But shame, yes, they feel shame, (more…)

Lyrikline Blog (LB): Where do you come from and why did you leave your country of origin?

Ali Al-Jallawi (AA): I’m from Bahrain, and I left my country back in 2011, when I felt unsecure. When the Bahraini regime announced the emergency law in the state, the Saudi and the Emirati troops invaded the streets of Bahrain, they were responsible of suppressing the protests, arresting protesters and killing people on the streets, I broke away from home to live a life.

LB:In your view, is it the task of a poet also to be a chronicler or witness of his/her time?

AA: The poet is a mirror which reflects what is around him, reflects what he feels, what affected him, and what aspires him. He might be a witness, but without having the obligation of being one.

LB: What impact on society or politics can a poem have? Do oppressive regimes have to fear poetry?

AA: The tyrannies are terrified of everything that is beautiful, anything that provokes freedom, or incites erosion of their area of influence. The real poem consciously or unconsciously exposes and uncovers these systems, with a direct or indirect language. The dictator loves poetry (more…)

Marie Silkeberg was born in Copenhagen in 1961 and spent most of her life in Sweden, a country that has a special role in refugee politics.

Lyrikline Blog (LB): Topics like conflict, flight and refuge found their way into your poetry and poetry film making during the last years. Why’s that? Was there a crucial experience or encounter that made you work on these topics?

Marie Silkeberg (MS): I belong to a generation who have lived more than half of our lives in the 20th century. When I look back, I usually describe my books as divided according to this break in time. The end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century brought with them enormous changes in the world and in the cultural field. For a long period I couldn’t write at all. The aesthetics from the former century in this new world seemed so worn out. So I started to turn outwards, using listening, as a method, to understand and grasp the sound of the world. The first poems I wrote consisted of very few words, and searched for changes and shifts in the language. Haroun Farockis film Bilder der Welt und Inschrift des Krieges meant a lot to me while writing this book. His way of relating European history to the Algerian for instance, as well as his way of interpreting photos from the past in the light of the present, and his way of combining elements to create new meaning. The method of listening, to write the sound of the world I continued. I got the change to travel a lot, and took it. The fact of my grandfather being a Russian immigrant in Sweden, and his parents Greek immigrants in Odessa became a trace, a quest, an enigma, especially after the death of my father, and I felt I had to embrace this nomadic inheritance. (more…)

Ghayath Almadhoun was born in Syria in 1979 and is a resident of Sweden today.

Lyrikline Blog (LB): Where do you come from and why did you leave your country of origin?

Ghayath Almadhoun (GA): I came from Damascus, Syria, I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus, my family was expelled from Ashkelon to Gaza by the Israeli army in 1948, and again expelled from Gaza in 1967. In 2008 I was invited to read my poetry in Stockholm, and I sought asylum. Why? Look what is happening in Syria and you will know what kind of dictatorships I fled from.

LB: In your view, is it the task of a poet also to be a chronicler or witness of his/her time?

GA: I do not think we should overload poetry , at the same time poetry should not be isolated from the poet.

LB: What impact on society or politics can a poem have? Do oppressive regimes have to fear poetry?

GA: Poetry will not change politics and society, poetry can change people, who are in turn changing politics and Society.

LB: In your view, is there a relation between the power of the words of a poet and that of a dictator, since they both work language?

GA: Language is a means used by everyone, Hitler spoke German, (more…)

Sjón was born Iceland in 1962 and is an active supporter of the Cities of Refuge project ICORN. Thanks to his initiative, Reykjavík joined this international network of cities hosting persecuted writers.

Lyrikline Blog (LB): You are very active in the “Cities of refuge network” (ICORN). How come you made the issue of persecuted and exiled writers your topic?

Sjón (SJ): As a teenager I went to a talk given by the Somali author Nuruddin Farah about how it is to be a writer living under dictatorship. It had a strong impact on me. At the same time I was fascinated by Surrealism and through my readings about the movement and its poets in different countries I realised how provocative poetry can be, even in its most surreal or abstract form, and therefore how easily it can put the poets in opposition to authority, both political and religious. Then when the chance came I felt I had the obligation to practically do whatever I could to support persecuted writers. And that is what I have done through ICORN and PEN. Those of us who have the benefit of living in countries where free speech is allowed can show our true commitment to its values by fighting for those who are not so lucky.

LB: In your view, is it the task of a poet also to be a chronicler or witness of his/her time?

SJ: The poet can never be anything but a witness to his time. All good poems chronicle the times their author’s lived in. This is because the poet lives at the crossroads of experience and expression.

LB: In your view, is there a relation between the power of the words of a poet and that of a dictator, since they both work with language?

Fiston Mwanza Mujila was born in Congo in 1981 and moved to Austria without the need to flee his country. He gives us his view on living and writing in exile.

Photo: Gäel Turine4

Lyrikline Blog (LB): Where do you come from and why did you leave your country of origin?

Fiston Mwanza Mujila (FM): I was born in Lubumbashi, in Democratic Republic of Congo. I left my country for curiosity reasons. I always wanted to discover the world, to learn new languages, to expand my knowledge…

LB: What impact on society or politics can a poem have? Do oppressive regimes have to fear poetry?

FM: All dictatorships hate the truth. The truth is like a mirror. And dictatorships see in truth their own death. A poem conveys a vision of the world or any truth can frighten a totalitarian regime…

LB: In your view, is it the task of a poet also to be a chronicler or witness of his/her time?

FM: „My mouth will be the mouth of the misfortunes that have no mouth, my voice, freedom of those sagging in the dungeon of despair“ wrote Aimé Césaire in his magnificent book of a return to the homeland. In my view the poet can’t be insensible to the suffering of others…(more…)